Tuesday, August 24, 2010

I just found probably the most awesome thing in the history of ever- Java game emulators on the internet for platforms from the eighties and nineties. In other words, old games without having to download anything!!! My personal favorites are Nintendo8, which is where you'll find your old arcade games, and GBemul, which is where an astonishing amount of old GameBoy games can be found, even though for me some of them don't work. If you poke around a bit, though, you can get to Sega Master System games, Commodore 64 games, SNES games, and even DOS games. Prepare to have huge amounts of your time wasted.

Saturday, August 14, 2010

Please do me a favor and listen to this song if you are able. It is so, so, so nice. I may be a bit biased, since it's off Smoosh's newest album and I am somewhat obsessive about them, but... really, go listen.

Friday, August 13, 2010

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

My last video breakdown was rather morbid and disturbing. I admit that. So, I'm going to do another breakdown to make up for it. This time my target is not a creepy A-bomb test straight out of The Nuclear Age. This time I'm going more recent, into the eighties, long after the Cold War was dead (although nuclear testing was still going strong). Now a different culture ruled, driven by consumerism and prosperity, and this climate gave birth to... the music video. (After all that build-up, that feels like a really disappointing conclusion.)

So which hapless eighties band is going to be going under the microscope today? Depeche Mode. I'm sure you'll be surprised to learn that I actually like them, and that today's target is my absolute favorite song of theirs. What can I say? I'm an equal opportunity mocker, and this video was just asking for it. Sadly, I can't embed it, so you'll have to watch it yourself.

I like the stuff at the beginning. It fits the song. The reflections are absolutely hypnotizing. (full disclosure: I got three hours of sleep last night.)I don't think anyone believes they're actually playing those instruments. Part of the reason I love Depeche Mode so much is because they have synthesizers. I don't know if my adoration of synthesizers has ever come up here before, even though maybe people have guessedat it.Oh, and here is Dave. His sole purpose in the band is to sing. His sole purpose in this video is to dance. He is far better at one than the other. Henceforth, I shall refer to him as Dancin' Dave. His dancing is part heart attack and part violent twitching and jerking, with a dash of Rick Astley.Here are the rest of the band members! They play the synthesizers. Sometimes they sing too. I want to know what the director was on when he decided that this... this... hair chorus was ever a good idea. I swear they are arranged in descending order by the height of their hair.Okay, Cameraman, you can stop zooming now. Uh, Cameraman? Hello? Cameraman? Please stop, I don't need to see this much of Martin Gore...Woah! The good news is, we now have neon. The bad news is, we also have Double Dancin' Dave! Watch the awkward dancing in stereo.They need to stop superimposing Dancin' Dave over everything. I actually like these scenes in the background, and they fit the song, but I have a hard time watching them because of Dave doing his best Never Gonna Give You Up dance in front of everything. Oh, no, wait, I take that back, he's back to jumping around again. And all this time there are lovely office buildings going by in the background. Do you see what I mean?I really like that wall.The hair chorus is back! Martin really looks like he doesn't want to be there. Alan Wilder (guy in the middle) is getting really into it, though. (Fun fact- he's the guy responsible for those amazing bloopy noises in the background of the choruses.)Dancin' Dave and the Chorus are on the screen at the same time. I don't know if I can handle this.This bit with the ladder screws with my head. I'm very happy Dave isn't dancin' away over this bit, too. My brain might explode.I have seen this video many times. I have pondered very deeply over the possible significance of this piece. But I am still utterly befuddled by the people in robes jumping up and down.Hooray, it's Martin's toy harmonica! I have seen it in action before.I am less amazed by the random beach than I am by the notable absence of Dancin' Dave. What happened? Oh, no, wait, there they all are. Martin's gravity-defying hair was the first thing I noticed. How he escaped being first in the Hair Chorus, I have no idea.So you want to do an epic spinning band shot around a statue. Said statue has a square base. The band has four members. What do you do? Put each member of the Hair Chorus on a side and awkwardly stick Dancin' Dave on a corner. Obviously. (Why do I notice this stuff?)And now they're all sitting in mysterious chairs on the beach. What a nice ending. My brain hurts.

Monday, August 09, 2010

I just picked this up around the internet, so sadly I can't credit it to anyone. Whoever made it is brilliant, however. It's the most amazing mondegreen I have yet seen. Can you figure out what it's from?(PS: All my Wikipedia links are secure now because I use this Firefox add-on. You should check it out.)

Recently, I read The Great Gatsby. Then I came across this comic. It is perfect for the book. If you have ever read The Great Gatsby, even if it was thirty years ago, go read it. You will be happy, I promise. If you aren't happy, I am terribly sorry, try listening to this song. If that doesn't make you happy, you probably have no soul, and I can't do anything about that.

Friday, August 06, 2010

Remember how I broke down that video of Sedated Shaun not so long ago? That was so much fun, I decided to do it again. But this time, I'm taking down a video of Operation Cue, a nuclear bomb test in Nevada in 1955.

I'm not sure what these Sheeple Files mentioned at the beginning are, but I like them already.A real-life nuclear detonation broadcast on TV? Damn, TV ain't what it used to be.I think I might have spotted Pinnochio's cousin. No, really, go back and look at that person wrapped up in white. The hell?Somehow the presence of a white truck clearly labeled Casualty Control does not make this feel very safe. That implies there will be casualties and they're only there to make sure they don't get too out of hand.I'm looking for volunteer work right now. Unfortunately, I haven't had the luck to find a chance to observe an H-bomb test from a "trench relatively close to Ground Zero." It's the most exciting way to get cancer around!I love that the goggles are considered the only protection necessary.That countdown interspersed with vague shadowy scenes looks straight out of a horror movie.Listen to that music right after the bomb goes off. It's amazing.And now for some footage of the Test Objects, as Mrs. Narrator so delicately called them, getting blown to hell.Keep listening to the background music. It sounds like the Closet Killer Paramount theme in places. I think they put more effort into the soundtrack than the video. I also think whoever wrote this soundtrack was a good bit more frightened of the test than Mrs. Narrator, who remains blithely excited through the whole video.I saw the video of the house at 2:25 in a documentary about nukes as a small child. It may have scarred me for life.Oh. My. God. Were mannequins really necessary for this test??? Namely, child mannequins? Those things are creepy enough without a context... Also, because the joke had to be made: That house was so built for a nuclear family.Yes, wait twenty-four hours to view the wreckage. By that point everything should be through except the radiation, and who cares about that?The concrete bunker house survived! What a surprise.Okay, new Mr. Narrator, I know you're happy your improvements did something, but I don't think more structural integrity is going to help when there's no roof and nothing left inside the house.How are we supposed to tell that blast shelters cannot be relied on from that shot? It looks like their mannequin test subjects are doing just fine. Then again, mannequins usually look like they're doing just fine.Hooray for reinforced bathrooms! If the apocalypse comes while you're on the john, you should be just fine.Awkward handshake sighted.Who cares about everything else- if we get bombed tomorrow, the consumer-sized tanks of petroleum should be intact! Civilization shall live on!I like how this video assumes that if the Reds push the button, the first order of business in the US will be to make sure the oil is okay, the electricity is on, and the radio is broadcasting. They had fallout shelters for the government, after all, so everyone important would be okay."Do you remember this young lady?" I don't think I want to.I really do not think what the blast did to the mannequin's clothes should be a priority.His new dark suit is charred? I think he looks a bit charred himself.Mmmm, potentially irradiated roast beef. Nice to know that after the nuclear holocaust, we'll at least have delicious food.Thanks for reminding us it's a test. I would have thought some random houses in the middle of the desert filled with mannequins would be an ideal target for the Soviets."Multimegaton weapons would result in much greater damage over a larger area." NO SHITLet me amend that last sentence: "...as we plan for the survival of our homes, our families, our mannequins, our radio stations, our electricity, our oil supply, our delicious roast beef, and our nation in... The Nuclear Age."

Monday, August 02, 2010

Need to describe a certain, um, act? Want to describe it in a way that is so original and vague that it makes whatever, um, act you are referring to sound a million times dirtier than it actually is? Try The Always Amusing Euphemism Generator! Here is a sample result for you: "You give me five hundred dollars, I give you the negatives, and no one has to know you were pillaging the royal porcupine." Now you try it!

1. Point camera at object. Move and tilt camera until object is mostly in frame.

2. Attempt to get camera to focus.

3. Once camera is in perfect focus, mash down on camera button and hope it will take a picture.

4. Camera either slips out of focus just as picture is taken or goes into video mode. If the latter happens, fumble to get the camera back into picture mode and repeat process.

5. (optional) If the resulting picture is intolerably blurry, you may delete it and try again; just keep in mind this increases the chance the next picture will be blurrier than the first by 70%.

6. Once the picture is finally taken, discover that how you tilted the camera to get the object in the frame resulted in the picture being upside down in a way that no amount of gyroscope-tilting will fix.